Labour pledge to replace House of Lords with elected chamber

Ministers are working on proposals to transform the House of Lords into a democratically elected second chamber based loosely on the US Senate. The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, who would lose his seat in the Lords and his post in government under the plans, confirmed today that they would be published "very shortly". Leaked blueprints reveal the current 704-seat chamber would be reduced to 300 seats, its members elected under a system of proportional representation. The justice secretary, Jack Straw, will publish his proposals in a draft bill before the election and these will feature prominently in Labour's manifesto. Labour strategists hope that it will create a new dividing line with the Tories, allowing them to portray the Conservatives as being anti-reform. The second chamber would no longer be known as the House of Lords, a name which has been in use since the 14th century. Members would face elections every three terms and earn a salary of around £65,000. They would also be subject to a US-style "recall ballot" which would disqualify them for incompetence. The plans are designed to make parliament and legislative scrutiny more accountable, but they predate the recent rows about privilege in the Lords centring on the revelations of the Tory donor Lord Ashcroft's non-dom tax status. Adonis told the BBC's Marr show: "The time has now come to make it legitimate in the only way that a legislative assembly can be legitimate in the modern world, which is to be elected. Of course you couldn't introduce that reform until after the election, but there'll be firm proposals. And they build on the big changes we've already made to the House of Lords – notably the removal of the hereditary peers which has transformed it from being an essentially one-party Tory assembly with very little connection with modern life to being a proper working assembly." There are still 92 hereditary peers, a concession the government made to force through the 1999 reforms. Under the new plans, which were leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, they would all be removed. It is understood the main sticking points still to be overcome are over what to do about the 25 bishops in the Lords, whose removal would trigger a row with the church, and how to manage the transition to the new system. A spokesman for the Conservatives said that Labour had had 13 years to reform the Lords, and to launch proposals now was playing politics with the electoral system. " We will work to build a consensus for a mainly elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords," he said.